Black Swallower

I very much like what a person called Peter Batson has to say about it, when asked to name his favourite deep-sea creature:

“For sheer optimism, it would have to be the black swallower, a small midwater fish of New Zealand’s deep oceans. This creature will swim up to a fish two or three times its size, open its toothy mouth, and swallow it whole. Its belly is like a balloon, and it expands to ridiculous proportions to accommodate prey that would, under different circumstances, have happily eaten the fish it was just swallowed by.”